3/13/55

Scripture: Matthew 5: 1-12 (the Beatitudes)

I suppose that happiness is a goal for hosts of us. Multitudes of people are unhappy a great deal of the time, and are looking for happiness in many directions. Here in America we regard the search for happiness as a basic human right. Our Declaration of Independence, transmitted to posterity by the founding fathers of the Republic, asserts that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are among man’s inalienable rights. We crave happiness, we often demand it as a right, we pursue it with might and main. Perhaps we make the mistake of regarding happiness as an aim or end in itself, rather than the byproduct of the attitude or way in which we live. Pursued as an end, it often proves elusive. It appears in our lives more often when accepted as a concomitant of living, by right and worthy choices, quite without our regard for whether what we choose to do will make us happy, as an aim, or not.

We might question whether we mortals may claim happiness as our due, when it seems so elusive. Not everyone does expect happiness as his due, or makes it his aim. The basic aim of Gautama Buddha, and his followers, has been to suppress, or deny, or evade, not only selfishness, but all human desire. The Buddhist search is not for the enjoyment of life, but for an escape from life. Not the “abundant life” of Jesus, but escape into nothingness is the ideal hope of Buddha. Greek Stoics tended to believe that life which is truly worth living is possible for only a very few, rare souls. Any expectation of happiness was assumed to by-pass the plain people.

Jesus, however, looked upon all people as children of the heavenly Father. As such, he seems to have regarded them all as entitled to share in the joys of life. He did not necessarily define the joys just as we may think we want them defined. His goals, for himself and for us, do not seem to have included possessions, power and popularity. But he did bring the good news of “abundant living” to all people. In his first synagogue appearance, after he began his ministry, he announced that he was divinely commissioned to “preach the gospel to the poor, ... to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” [Luke 4: 18-19]. And his hearers, quite naturally, welcomed him as a herald of happiness. His collected sayings, which we know as the “Sermon on the Mount,” as reported in Matthew, chapter 5, begin with a list of ways, or areas, in which happiness is found.

However, these “Beatitudes” as they are called, run so counter to our current ideas of happiness that people find them hard to believe. Some are inclined to apply them only to a perfect kingdom which is to be consummated beyond our history. But Jesus taught that “the kingdom is within you.” And so its rules of happiness have relevance here and now, as well as in any future consummation.

There are some voices which proclaim that the Beatitudes may be better understood if they are not translated, “happy,” at all. Of course the Biblical word “blessed” is a much stronger word, and filled with deeper significance, than our word “happy,” as commonly used.

Carlyle wrote: “There is in man something more than the love of happiness. We can do without happiness, and instead find blessedness.” But he oversimplifies it. To talk about “blessedness” without being happy is like putting food before a hungry child without allowing him to eat.

Jesus saw the longing that people have for happiness. He shared in it himself. And he did not give men a stone when they asked for bread. He met people on the level of their desires, and he lifted them to the plane of their real needs. What he brought to them was a richer, higher happiness.

Ralph Sockman suggests that the first requirement for being happy is to settle the seat of sovereignty in one’s life. Who or what is to rule this life that you want to be happy? Jesus made much of this point. “No man,” he declared, “Can serve two masters.” [Luke 16: 13]. And elsewhere he said, “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” [Mark 3: 25].

Not only must life be brought together under some central authority, but, according to Jesus, that sovereignty must be God. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” [Matthew 6: 33]. To Jesus, God is the center of all life and activity, and all true blessedness is geared to His will. Jesus viewed every situation as to how it would affect his heavenly Father. Would it displease and disappoint Him, or would it have his approval? Jesus looked constantly to God. He yielded his will to God so completely that his wishes were at one with God’s wishes. So, Jesus was actually in the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God was in Jesus, even while he was climbing the hills in the Palestinian province of Galilee.

It is quite possible and desirable for us to be in the Kingdom of God while we walk the streets of New York, or Denver, or Wisconsin Rapids. What we need to do, in order to be in that kingdom, is to make God sovereign in our lives; to test what we do by what we find is His will; to put His interest above all else.

Recently, I heard a man speak rather feelingly about his part in a cause which he deeply believes is right and necessary, but which is unromantic and quite unpopular in many quarters. He told a group of us quite frankly that he had given up positions where he did enjoy a considerable amount of popularity and status; that he had given up his standing in a retirement system that by now would have offered him a good deal of security (for he is now near the age of usual retirement.) He had “stuck he neck out,” as he said, where it would often be hit. All of this because, so he said, “My old dad taught me to do what God wants, and this is what God wants me to do!”

I think he may have been feeling just a wee bit sorry for himself. And I’m sure that he was then making a strong plea for others to stick their necks out with him. But he had hold of the kind of motivation that sends people into spots that are hard and unpopular, with the joy of knowing that it’s right, if it is the will of God.

To most of us, the sovereign of our lives is not God himself, but “me myself.” We say “amen” and join in the chorus of “Invictus.” “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul” --- or at least that is what we want to be.

The thought of many individuals runs thus: “I look out for number one.” And who is number one? My employer, my doctor my president? My God? Oh no ---- number one is myself in that expression! When a situation arises, whatever it be, I think first: “How will it affect me?” Of course, I should like to have a better world. But my primary concern is for a world that is a better place for me. I want to see people happy, but most of all I want to be happy myself. I pray for peace, but the peace I want most is undisturbed security for myself.

Is not this the sovereignty that most of us set up? The idol which we worship? Or, if it disturbs us deeply, the devil with which we wrestle? When, therefore, Christ confronts us with his gospel of happiness, it is his kingdom of God against our kingdoms of self. The principles of God’s kingdom are viewed from the perspective of the kingdom of Jones, the kingdom of Finley, the kingdom of Kingdon (I frequently have occasion to observe that our family misses the Kingdom by one final flourish of the pen!)

When Jesus says: “Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” or “Happy are they that mourn for they shall be comforted,” we may think (to ourselves of course) “What an impractical streak Jesus had in him. His way may be lovely in a future heaven, or in some utopia. But it will not work in our world of reality.” But which is the real world -- the world we see, or the world Jesus saw?

Psychologists insist that a room looks different to a little child than to an adult. The toddler sees a chair that looms so tall that, though he can climb up by it, he can not get up on it without help. His father doesn’t look up to a chair; he looks down on it. Dad doesn’t climb up to a chair, he sits down on it. The toddler cannot see what is on top of the table, unless he pulls cloth and contents off onto the floor. As for the top of the door or the ceiling of the room - that’s “way up there” to him. People tower above him so that he sees shoe laces, hem lines and trouser knees far more easily than faces. Father and Mother look each other in the eye, on the level, and look way down to the tot who explores all the dust “kitties” and contents of the waste basket.

Well, who sees the world in that room with more comprehension and more dependable perspective -- the tot a couple of feet from the floor, or the man 4 feet and 24 years farther up? Is it not logical to assume that the real world is the world as it looks to God, who created it, rather than to the ants or the people who explore a bit of its surface and participate in a little of its experiences? If Jesus saw the world more clearly than any other, and I am persuaded that he did, is it not because he came nearer seeing it from God’s viewpoint than other has? He was “at one” with the heavenly Father.

Jesus laid down rules, or illuminated principles, for living in the real world as he saw it. Do we not reveal ourselves as “dumb yokels” if we ridicule those principles just because they do not fit our little man-viewed world?

Students of those times sometimes speak of the apostles of Christ as men who turned the world upside down. It would probably be more accurate to refer to Jesus’ teachings, and his pupils, as forces that turn the world rightside up!

Jesus knew that the ideas of happiness which he expressed in these beatitudes would seem foolish to the world. He didn’t put them in headlines. He planted them in the ears and hearts of those who wanted to hear and ponder them. These “blesseds” belong in the company of truths which are hidden “from the wise and prudent” as he said, but revealed to the simple and trusting. Ralph Sockman says that Jesus whispered his beatitudes into the ears of the faithful, and these “blesseds” have been overheard by the world, which is haunted by their promise though it hesitates to accept their program.

If we are to enter into the secret of higher happiness pictured by Jesus, we must first change the seat of sovereignty from self to God, and try with all our earnest hearts to keep it there. When it is so transferred, new sources of satisfaction appear. The song bird sings because he feels like singing. It is nice if other birds sing at the same time, but he sings anyway. The young couple in love may go about their work indifferent to its drudgery, because they have found more joy in giving affection than in wanting to receive something.

To be used of God rather than to use Him, to comfort rather than to seek, comfort, to give love rather than ask for it -- such should be the direction of our desiring.

The security that comes with that is outgoing and adventurous, rather than fearful and withdrawn. There is a “peace of God which passes all the understanding” of the world. But its secrets are for those who are initiated into the kingdom of God, beginning right here on earth.

So I propose that we explore further some of these beatitudes -- these “blesseds” of Jesus, during the next few weeks --- perhaps for a couple of months. Perhaps we can discern better whose is the “higher happiness,” and why it is so blessed, so happy, to live as God wants life lived, that we shall want to live it that way.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, March 13, 1955.